The Academic Senate voted unanimously to approve the Committee on Education Policy’s recommendation for the Sixth College Detailed Academic Plan in its final meeting of the year.
The Sixth College Steering Committee, which includes undergraduate student representatives, submitted the plan. Gabriele Wienhausen, provost of Sixth College, presented the plan at the meeting.
Sixth College’s theme, “”Culture, Art and Technology,”” is also the name of the required general education core sequence designed to embrace the exploration of interactions among the three. The CAT sequence is highly interdisciplinary and integrates learning in arts and humanities, social sciences, and science and engineering.
The general education requirements also emphasize the mission of the new college.
“”Sixth College will help students to see their own and other cultures not as givens, but as products of this synergistic interplay amongst art, technology and human adaptation,”” the plan states.
In addition to the CAT sequence, students will be required to take an associated course in computer literacy in their first quarter.
Students will also receive intensive instruction in composition and information literacy in the second and third quarters, breadth requirements, and an upper-division practicum with an adjunct communication class.
General education requirements at Sixth College will be identical for all of its students and will include 17 to 18 courses totaling 68 to 72 units.
An education from Sixth College will emphasize computer literacy and will include learning inside and outside the classroom.
Though the CEP motion was approved, there were some concerns raised during the meeting.
Communications professor Chandra Mukerji addressed the concern that Sixth College curriculum should include a course that shows how technology is not always benign.
“”There is not enough attention to the character of technology,”” Mukerji said. “”Students need to know about the power of technology.””
Mukerji cited military technology as an example of this.
Acting organizer of the Sixth College core sequence, John Marino, added that he agreed with Mukerji and that proposed courses such as “”Leonardo and Machiavelli”” would discuss the effects of politics and power on technology.
Two required “”Art Making”” classes were also a concern. One speaker said that the requirements should be loosened and that taking such courses, because they are only 10 weeks in length, was simply “”dabbling”” in the arts.
Another concern was the absence of a foreign language requirement. Studying a foreign language will be encouraged but not required in an effort to make Sixth College more accessible to transfer students.
“”You can’t have everything,”” said Muir College Provost Patrick Ledden.
He also lauded the accomplishments of the Sixth College Steering Committee.
“”The Sixth College has done a terrific job of carving out its niche,”” Ledden said.
The Sixth College will admit its first students in fall 2002.
Sixth College is the first new undergraduate college at UCSD since Eleanor Roosevelt College was established in 1988.
